The Role of Parliaments in the Protection and Realisation of the Rule of Law and Human Rights research project: Follow-on Funding

1. This proposal seeks funding to enable the research project to take a unique opportunity with the potential for major international impact, to assist international partner organisations (in particular the United Nations and the global organisation for parliaments, the Inter-Parliamentary Union) in the finalisation of the text of a set of Principles on Parliaments and Human Rights and to take the final steps towards their adoption by the UN Human Rights Council in June and, possibly, the UN General Assembly in September. The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, where the PI (Murray Hunt) is Director, will act as the host institution for the duration of the proposed next phase (May to October 2018).

2. Following a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council in June 2017, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ("UNOHCHR"), working with the Inter-Parliamentary Union ("IPU"), has drafted a set of Principles on Parliaments and Human Rights. The draft Principles will be the subject of a validation exercise in June 2018 in Geneva, involving parliamentarians from a number of countries, and will be included in a Report to the UN Human Rights Council to be considered during its 38th session in Geneva in June. If adopted by the UN Human Rights Council, there is the further possibility that the Principles might be considered by the UN General Assembly during its meeting in New York in September 2018, which would greatly enhance their normative status as a set of global principles for parliaments worldwide.

3. The adoption of a set of internationally agreed Principles and Guidelines on the role of parliaments in relation to human rights and the Rule of Law has been one of the principal impact objectives of the project since 2012. The PI has been consulted by UNOHCHR on the draft Principles and invited to take part in the validation exercise in Geneva. The purpose of the funding sought in this proposal is to enable the project's research team to play a full part in what it is hoped will be the final stages in the adoption of the Principles as an internationally agreed set of norms.

4. Three previous phases of the project have been generously funded by the AHRC, without which the project could not have achieved such a level of influence, and the potential to have such a major impact internationally. A full summary of activity on the project since 2010 can be viewed online at https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-and-subject-groups/parliaments-rule-law-and-human-rights-project

The purpose of the additional funding now being sought is to enable the project's established research team to work in close partnership with the above partner organisations on the potential international adoption of a set of draft principles. In particular this will comprise the following main activities:

(1) taking a full part in the UNOHCHR/IPU validation exercise in Geneva in June (this validation exercise is an important step in the adoption of the principles as it is crucial that the Principles have the buy-in of national parliaments before being adopted through an intergovernmental process);

(2) to provide the research input necessary to help the adoption of the Principles by producing an AHRC Policy Paper updating the March 2017 Policy Paper Global developments in the role of parliaments in the protection and promotion of human rights and the rule of law: An Emerging Consensus;

(3) to organise, with international partners, a side-event during the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June, to follow up the very successful side-event in March 2017, co-hosted by UNOHCHR, IPU, AHRC, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the alliance of member states which sponsored the resolution which has brought forth the draft Principles, in order to encourage discussion and consideration of the Principles and to raise their profile;

(4) to take part in any consideration of the draft Principles by the UN General Assembly in New York in September, and possibly to organise a side-event during the General Assembly, to serve the same purposes as the side-event in Geneva in June, but on the wider UN stage;

(5) in the event that the Principles are adopted by the UN Human Rights Council and/or the UN General Assembly, to work with the IPU to devise the most effective way to disseminate them to the world's parliaments and to begin to develop resources to help implement them.

It is hoped that these activities will help to secure the adoption of some internationally agreed Principles on parliaments and human rights and therefore achieve the project's principal impact goal. However, while the research team can work energetically to create interest in the draft principles and to continue to build the necessary partnerships, the pace of formal adoption by the international bodies involved is beyond the control of the research team.